GOTTHOLB EPHRAIM LESSING 117

whole-heartqd admiration and sympathy go out; he
was a great i dramatist, a wise critic, an honest and
honourable pian of letters—one of the intellectual
giants of hig1 century. Moreover—and I cannot do
better than jturn here to our first great interpreter
of German j literature, Carlyle—" it is to Lessing
that an Englishman would turn with readiest affection.
As a poet, as a critic, philosopher, or controversialist,
his style will'be found precisely such as we of England
are accustomed to admire most: brief, nervous,
vivid; yet quiet, without glitter or antithesis;
idiomatic, pure without purism, transparent, yet
full of character and reflex hues of meaning. He
stands before us like a toilsome, but unwearied and
heroic champion, earning not the conquest but the
battle."